It would have come as an enormous shock to Arie, I’m sure, if Emily had sent him home on Monday night’s episode of “The Bachelorette.”

After all, during their dinner date, she confessed to him: “You really have been that light at the end of the tunnel for me.” (How would you have interpreted that if you were Arie?)

At the same time, it would have come as a huge surprise to Jef, no doubt, if he’d gotten dumped by Emily this week.

After all, during their dinner date, she told him: “I had a couple days between Prague and hometowns where I got to be at home in Charlotte and just hang out with Ricki. I woke up the next morning and was packing her lunch and making her breakfast, and I was trying to picture what it would be like with someone else there. The person that kept popping into my head was you. It made me really happy.” (How would you have interpreted that if you were Jef?)

And so, it must have COMPLETELY blindsided Sean when he was left standing without a chair as the music stopped in Curacao on Monday night.

After all, during their date earlier, Emily told him: “I just think you’re the perfect man. … You represent everything everybody looks for in a husband.” How would you have interpreted that if you were Sean?

Obviously, he mistakenly interpreted that to mean he was the perfect man for Emily, and that he represented everything Emily looks for in a husband. But who could blame him for thinking that way?

I mean, imagine if a beautiful girl whom you’d been dating for weeks invited you to spend the day frolicking on a private island in the Caribbean, then said something to you along the lines of “There’s no place in the world I’d rather be right now,” then made out with you in a hot tub later that night … then turned around and told you to go seek love and life elsewhere.

You’d think someone was playing a sick joke on you. You’d look around and try to see where the cameras were. Of course, if you were a contestant on “The Bachelorette,” you wouldn’t have to look very hard, since the cameras would be everywhere.

Poor Emily was visibly torn up by her decision, and spent much of the last half-hour of the episode in tears. But she’s finally whittled the field from 25 to just two.

In one corner there’s Jef Holm, the 27-year-old entrepreneur, who respectfully declined Emily’s initial invitation to go to the “fantasy suite.” “Right now is a time for us to bridle these passions,” Jef said, earning the nod for most unintentionally hilarious line of the night.

In the other corner is Arie Luyendyk, the 30-year-old race car driver, who hasn’t bridled a single passion all season – and who Emily, in fact, declined to invite to the “fantasy suite” because, “At the end of the day I don’t trust myself. I won’t let myself go there.”

It’s shaping up to be a pretty dramatic finish. How dramatic?

Well, the finale – set to air on July 22, following next week’s “The Men Tell All” episode – is being billed as “the most dramatic television event of the summer.” It’s a claim that was met with peals of laughter from the creators of AMC’s “Breaking Bad” and HBO’s “The Newsroom” – or rather, would have been, if they actually watched “The Bachelorette.”